"Bye, I'll see you soon." Grace says goodbye to Zoe and closes the front door. After Zoe showed up yesterday afternoon, they talked the entire night. Graces mom had let Zoe sleep over, giving an understanding 'I was young once' look, and in the morning they all had breakfast together. During which, Grace introduced Zoe as her girlfriend and Merinda and Christina looked at both and said "Well, it's about time." Grace was sad she had to say goodbye to Zoe, they had been apart for so long, she just wanted to spend every minute with her. But she was also very tired, so she understood why she couldn't spend any more time with Zoe. She was actually planning on going to bed, when the house phone rang. She picked it up.
"Hello, Mrs Cardinal? This is Adriana Ramirez, I'm calling about the police investigation that is going on concerning your daughter." "Hi, Adriana, this is Grace Cardinal. My mom isn't home, but you can talk to me." "Okay then, Grace, it's good to talk to you again. I hope you're doing a bit better. Anyways, I have some bad news. We've been unable to find the person that roofied you. We have made a decent sketch, the one that I showed you, and we have camera footage but I showed all your friends and everyone else that was there that night them, they didn't recognize him. They had never seen him around Degrassi or anywhere else. I also went through similar past cases and I asked all of my coworkers but that didn't work out either. I'm sorry, Grace, but there's not much else I can do for you. I hope that he got too scared from what happened to you that he's never going to do it again, but if he does we at least have the security tapes, witnesses and sketch from your case. I guess what I'm trying to say is, you might help others in the future and I hope that can be somewhat of a consolation." "I- I don't know what to say, I'm sorry." With that, the phone call ended.
"Grace! Come on honey, you're gonna be late." Merinda urges her daughter from downstairs. "Yeah yeah, I had to make sure I looked okay. You know? Make a good impression, I haven't seen them in like a month. Seriously, it's been a month. The dance was on November 27th, then I've been home ever since December 9th, which was two and a half weeks ago. I mean, it's the end of the year already. The Christmas Holiday starts tomorrow or today, depending on how you look at it. Isn't that weird? I want to go back to school so bad, then when I'm finally allowed to, it's on the last day of school." Merinda sighs, they've had this conversation multiple times this week and she had kinda gotten tired of her daughter just having to much time on her hands. "Yes honey, I know. You want to see your friends more often I get it. But trust me, once this day is over, you'll be tired. No matter if it's just a very short day, with a small celebration because of the new year and Christmas. It'll drain you and that's okay, you have to get used to it. Plus, during the holiday you'll have plenty of time to catch up on all that homework and all those tests that you missed. Oh, and you can work on your projects, the ones you got extensions on etcetera. You'll have plenty of stuff to do." With a smile, Merinda closed the door behind her sighing, oldest daughter.
"Okay, bye mom. Thanks for dropping me off. I'll see you soon, love you too. Bye!" With that, Grace waved her mom goodbye, turned around and faced the school. She took in a few deep breaths. All of sudden she remembered something, from that day, November 27th, she was at the exact same place. She was wondering if anyone in Degrassi history had ever messed up as big as she had. Grace laughs, it seemed like such a weird question now, of course there had been. There had been students who made mistakes, maybe not all of them as big as hers, but a lot of them may have been. That's what happens when you're a person, you make mistakes. That's life.
She entered the school to find no one was there to greet her. She got worried, Zoe had told her what had happened the night of the dance. She had also told her that the group of friends had visited the hospital multiple times and that they blamed themselves, not her. But what if Zoe had been wrong, why else wouldn't they be here right now? And speaking of Zoe, where was she? Then Grace heard the sound of a piano coming from the gymnasium. She walked up to the big doors and opened them.
There were rows of people, just standing in the gymnasium on different sides, clearing out a small path in the middle. They were all dressed fancy, just like how the gymnasium had been decorated. Then, while walking through the path in the middle, Grace noticed that there was a band on stage, but she only heard a piano playing. Before she knew it a person started singing.
"Step one, you say we need to talk.
He walks, you say: sit down it's just a talk.
He stares politely back at you.
You stare politely right on through."
Grace is confused. Why is this happening? And who is singing? Then the lights hit the stage and she could finally see what was going on. The person singing was Miles Hollingsworth and Grace is slightly confused. But then she sees the other members: Tristan is standing next to Miles a bit more to the left side. Maya and Zig are standing side by side as well, but they're standing more to the right, both are playing guitar. Then next to Miles and Tristan is Tiny, playing the drums. And next to Maya and Zig, and next to the drums, is a piano. The piano is being played by the person that makes Graces heart flutter: Zoe. Maya, Zig and Zoe then joined in to sing the song.
"Between the lines of fear and blame."
Then Tristan, as well as Miles, joined in.
"You begin to wonder why you came."
Zig and Zoe, who looked up from her piano and immediately found Grace in the crowd, sang next.
"Where did I go wrong?"
Maya, still playing her guitar, got the next part.
"I lost a friend."
Zoe joined Maya, which Grace though was kinda odd.
"Somewhere along in the bitterness."
Then all of them joined in again and sang the rest of the chorus.
"And I would have stayed up with you all night.
Had I known how to save a life."
At the end of the song, Grace was in tears. There was something about being back in the place where so much went wrong, while also seeing your friends sing you a song and showing you they care about you. Most of all she couldn't believe Zoe had organized it, or so she was to believe from the little bow all the others gave Zoe at the end of the song. The students all cheered them on and she joined them, smiling bright. The members all exited the stage and Simpson asked her to come on stage. Which she did. He told her he was very happy to see her back at Degrassi and asked her to open the dance, which wasn't as big as a usual dance but he said they wanted to organize something specifically for her. Which she though was also so nice, it almost brought tears to her eyes again. After she opened the dance, and people cheered her on, she exited the stage and searched for Zoe. She found her, standing in front of the group, looking even more beautiful than ever. "Have I told you that I loved you yet?" Grace said. Zoe smiled: "Not today, no." Grace bit her lip before emotionally answering: "Well I do, I love you Zoe Rivas." "I love you too, Grace Cordelia Cardinal." "Really?" "Of course Dummy." With that, they kissed, while they heard their friends cheer in the background. They quickly finished the kiss, not wanting to be too PDA in front of their friends. Zoe turned around to stand next to her, grabbing her hand, and letting her be able to see all the people she had missed so much. The next few minutes were a mess of people hugging Grace and all kinds of grouphugs. But they didn't really have the time to talk as the music was very loud, so they just danced.
Two hours later most of the students had gone home and since only a few of them remained, the music had been tuned down. Tiny, Shay, Lola, Ezra, Tristan, Miles, Zig, Maya, Zoe and Grace were all sitting down at a huge table in the now empty gymnasium. "It's really good to have you back Grace, I missed you." Tiny says, while holding Shays hand. Grace smiles, "I missed you too Tiny. But... when did that happen?", she says while pointing towards the two holding hands. "Not too long ago, we're just taking it very slow." Grace smiles, before saying good. But then she turns to Lola. "And who is this?" Ezra fakes being shocked at Grace dismissing him and answers for Lola: "I can speak for myself. I'm Ezra. We met... three weeks ago at Lola's I think. Anyways, I liked her but she was having a rough time so I decided to leave it. But then I came back yesterday and she asked me to come with her, so I said yes." Lola smiles at Ezra before squeezing his hand, "I think our first date is going really well.", she says and Ezra nods confirming. Grace sighs, then says: "Too bloody romantic. How about you Novak? Anyone new in sights?" Zig is drinking but has to cough when he hears Grace ask him about his love life. "No one new, no. I have my eyes set on someone I've known a long time but I messed up, so now I'm waiting for her." He says, still coughing. Maya gives him a few helpful slaps on his back, "I just need a bit more time, to forgive someone is difficult.", she says with a half-smile, "But I'm really glad you're back to Grace, I missed you a lot. And I'm sorry-", she starts. "NO! God why does everyone always feel the need to apologize, we get it. We're all really sorry we messed up. We went over this Maya come on.", Tristan says semi-angry. "It's okay, I'm sorry too Maya. And I'm sorry I didn't tell any of you about my diagnosis, I just really don't like talking about it. People always start treating me different when I do and I don't want you guys to do that." Grace says, looking down. "It's okay, Grace, like Tristan said: we've all made mistakes." Miles tells her while winking at Tristan, before picking up his glass and giving a toast: "To Grace!" And everyone joins in, saying: "To Grace!"
Lola starts a conversation with Miles: "So, Miles, how is Frankie? I haven't talked to her in awhile, I needed to be alone and some other things happened between us." Miles hesitates before answering Lola: "Yeah I heard. She's fine, she and Jonah are doing great as a couple. But, the reason why she had to blew you off that Saturday is because something else was going on. At the last dance, Hunter brought a gun to school. He had this screwed up plan to hurt some people but he couldn't do it. Then at home he was thinking off killing himself, so I researched his symptoms, talked to a psychiatric at the hospital when me and Zoe visited Grace and... He has something called Intermittent Explosive Disorder, it's when you have outbursts of anger where you want to either hurt others or yourself. We were very lucky to have caught it before something really bad happened, but that was what we were busy with that Saturday. It was extremely chaotic. You should call Frankie, she wanted to call you but she was scared you'd be mad at her." The whole group stared at Miles in shock. Lola nodded, saying a soft "I will." Then Zig spoke up: "Can you tell Hunter I'm really sorry I said he was a psycho? He shouldn't be thinking that of himself. It was incredibly stupid of me to say that to his face and I shouldn't have done it. I know what it can lead to and... It was just very stupid of me, you can tell him that." Miles nods, appreciating Zigs apology: "Thank you for saying that, I will tell him what you said. He's having a lot of therapy and medication right now, we hope that he can attend school again in January."
Ezra has been staring at Grace for some time now and she's kinda crept out by it. "Excuse me, why are you looking at me like that? Did I do something wrong or?" Ezra shakes his head: "No, no. Absolutely not. I'm sorry for asking you this but, was your nurse in the hospital maybe named Florence?" Grace looks at the boy in surprise before nodding: "Yeah that was her name. How come you know that?" Ezra smiles: "That's my sister! She told me a little about your story and it stuck with me." Grace smiles as well but her smile then fades. "Could you maybe tell her she was amazingly nice? I never had a chance to do so in the hospital and I feel really bad about not thanking all my doctors and nurses." Ezra nods but then takes out his phone, hooks it up to a projector and video calls his sister. "Now you can thank her yourself!" He laughs.
The call gets picked up and it takes a few seconds but there she is. Florence laughs at the sight of a trashed gymnasium and a bunch of high school students. "Looks good little brother, what did you do?" Ezra laughs: "Nothing! We're just hanging out a bit, we're the last students to be here that's all. But there's someone here who really wants to thank you." Then he shows Florence Grace, who smiles and thanks Florence for all the hard work. "Oh honey, you don't need to thank me for that! But speaking of your case, I'm actually here with two other people who you may recall." Then Florence reveals Sophia and Adriana to also be there. "No way.", Grace responds, "Hi Sophia and Adriana! I can't believe this. You two were the last people I wanted to thank. Sophia for taking such good care of me and Adriana for trying your absolute best with what you were giving." "You're welcome!", Adriana and Sophia say in unison. Then Ezra takes over the phone again and tells Florence to: 'look who else is here?' Everybody in the gymnasium tries to squeeze them self into the frame and all of them laugh, recognizing each other from all kinds of places. Grace and Zoe look at each other smiling, Zoe sighs before saying: "Looks like everything will be working out this year." Zig answers her: "Yeah, guess it will." Maya tilts her head, saying: "I wonder what-" But she doesn't get a chance to finish that sentences because everyone interrupts her saying "NO!" It's quite for a few seconds before Grace says: "We're not gonna think about next year, that's like a curse. You have to live by the moment you know, let it go?" Everyone nods and replies: "Amen, sister." They all laugh, before both the frames from the students and the adults freeze.
A/N: It's finished... I just don't even know what to think or say. I hadn't expected this story to do this well and so I want to thank everyone for reading, reviewing, following or making this one of your favorite stories! Especially to An Anon, your appreciation for every chapter was incredible and unbelievable, thank you so much for taking the time to leave a review everytime. It may not seem like such a big deal to you, but it was definitely a big deal for me. Now for the future, I'm taking a week, or maybe more, off to just figure out what story I'm going to be writing next. I have like 25 ideas for stories that I want to write, a lot of them for other shows. But you can definitely expect another Degrassi: Next Class story soon and it might be Gracevas (or something with the Hollingsworths, cause they're my favorites for this series). Tot ziens!